It was meant to be...

Last year I spent a long weekend in Minnesota visiting my BFF
and doing a little junking. We stopped in one of her favorite little
vintage shops in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Here I found these
steel panels from an old carrousel  hand painted with Dutch country side images...
and I fell in love. They were beautiful in that vintage folk art way and
they reminded me of Holland where my dad was from.

I don't know why but I didn't buy one. I know, silly right?
You should always buy it if your gut is screaming for it.
Well, a year later and I was still kicking myself for not buying one.

This brings me to this September when I stopped in Minneapolis for a couple
of days to see my BFF and do a little junking. You seeing a pattern yet?
This year we went to Junk Bonanza, neither of us had been before.
We were cruising around and I was reminiscing about the carrousel panels
I was still kicking myself for not buying from last year. I had to stop off
in the restroom and when I came out my friends said "your not going to believe
this but..."

Right behind where we stopped were the ladies who owned the shop we had
been in the year before. (I'm horrible, I don't remember the shops name).
We asked them about the panels and your not going to believe this but they
still had two of them. I described the one I wanted and yes, it was one
of the two they still had. Her husband was kind enough to run them over
and this time I bought one.

Now the issue was how was I going to get it home. Shipping it was more
expensive then what I paid for it and the thing weighed at least 45lbs.
Well, just a couple of booths down was a woman from Yakima.
Some of you might know her, Lisa Souers.
We told her our shipping delima and she offered to stick it in her
truck as she had room now and it wasn't very bulky and I would
find some time to run up to Yakima to pick it up. 

Well, a couple of weeks later, everyone is home again and Lisa and I
are trying to figure out a weekend that would work for both of us for
me to pick it up when she told me she would be up at Ruffles and Rust
in Monroe, WA. I figured, a quick drive to Monroe, pick up my piece
and I get to stop in Bellevue to see a girlfriend.

It all worked, out! I drove up to Monroe on Friday found my new friend
Lisa and picked up my fabulous folk art.

I owe Lisa a HUGE thank you for schlepping my piece half way across the
country and to Monroe just for me. You ROCK sister! Thank you!

Here's the piece, it's not a great picture but you'll get the idea.

Now I need to figure out how to hang it. My walls are lath and plaster and not
very forgiving with holes or heavy things hanging. But that's for another day.

So, you see it was all meant to be.

ciao,
F